Friday, August 24, 2007

100th post!

Woot! This is the 100th post on this blog! Can't believe this little blog has reached this milestone so quickly...within two months! Though I have to admit, that's because I've basically regurgitated news, features and articles from the Wizard Universe website in its entirety. But hey, this is a comics and pop culture-related blog, so of COURSE I'm going to post stuff that interests me.

I'll dedicate this post to my own thoughts though! I mean, I DO share my thoughts on the articles and stuff that I've gotten from Wizard Universe, but it's very seldom I get a chance to talk about something all on my own.

Over the last two days, I've watched three episodes of M.A.S.K. Yes, I picked up Volumes 1 and 2 of the DVD sets after the EzyDVD person called me to tell me my order had arrived! Haven't really had time to sit down and watch episodes though...I'm still behind on my Transformers episodes as well, since I lent the DVDs to Marcelo and only got them back before he left for home. Plus, with the new Wii, I've got a bevy of options on how to utilise my free time.

I've got to balance between playing the Wii, reading comics and watching the stuff on TV/DVDs. I'm not complaining, mind you...it's a good position to be in when you can actually be using free time to do all this stuff! Of course, now with me starting work soon, I'll actually have even LESS time to do any of this stuff!

Ok ok, time to stop making all of you jealous that I actually HAD free time to do all this stuff.

As I said earlier, I watched three episodes of M.A.S.K. over the last two days. M.A.S.K. has got to be my second favourite cartoon from my youth (my favourite, obviously being Transformers :p) so I was psyched to be singing the M.A.S.K. theme song at the start of the cartoon! More on that in another entry.

As soon as I watched the first episode, I realised how TERRIBLE the cartoon was, by today's standards. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely loved the show, despite the campy dialogue and hackneyed plot points. And it was really silly, physics-wise, to believe that a helicopter could just float in mid-air while it changed into some sort of fighter jet. And a car (camaro I believe?) could just open up it's flap-doors and instantly turn into some sort of flying vehicle. But hey, it was the 80s and as kids, you'd believe all those sorts of things COULD happen.

I didn't realise how annoying Bruce Sato (the driver of Rhino) was with his Confucius-style quips. As far as Asian stereotypes go, he was THE defining stereotype in cartoons. And it was pretty horribly voice acting all round too. But hey, you can't really compare cartoons of the 80s to cartoons of today...the standards have increased so much. And even though, in general, the cartoon was REALLY terrible, as a kid you just can't help but love it!

I'd love to own an oversized mask (some which actually cover your shoulders as if you needed additional protection from the forces of V.E.N.O.M.) that needed to be energised so that I could do all sorts of neats stuff with it, like create illusions, or allow me to fly, or lift things up. And I'd love to own a vehicle that could "transform" into other vehicles (I wonder if Hasbro and Transformers tried suing Kenner or M.A.S.K. for potential copyright infringements?). All in all, I love M.A.S.K. and I can't wait to watch the next episode in my collection!

Now all I need to do is the borrow Ben Penney's Visionaries DVD box set and burn a copy of myself and I'd have ANOTHER part of my youth to cherish and reminisce upon.

Surrender? SURRENDER?!

Me Comic Book Guy! Me smash...er...geek you out!

Comic book geek extraordinaire at your service! As my friends always take great pleasure in reminding me: I'm a pop culture geek and a child of the 80s with too much useless information in my head. Now kneel before Zod!